since we have been married my husband jokes that i only buy ingredients and not food at the store. I KIND OF LIKE THAT. these are my adventures of preparing meals with basic, real food ingredients and eliminating convenience foods.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

It's been a little while! I am in the middle of several projects around the house and haven't been spending too much time on the computer. Good news though, my kitchen is almost done! My weight loss seems to have slowed down. I know some of the reasons why and hopefully have made some corrections. One reason is that I have spent so much time working on household projects that I haven't made exercise a priority. I know I need to exercise, not only to boost my weight loss, but to be healthy I need more exercise. So how am I planning to fix that? I am just making it one of the items on my daily to do list. I have started using a daily list for a lot of things and decided that exercise needs to be on there, because if it is on the list and I see it, I am more likely to do it. I am one of those people that gets some satisfaction of actually marking things off my list. Another reason is that as I am reading more and educating myself more and more about the food I eat, I have been eating more "real" foods. Real bacon, not turkey bacon, real maple syrup, not maple flavored syrup, butter not margarine, and real fruit mixed in my yogurt, not fruit flavored yogurt. I haven't been always checking out the nutritional information to find the correct portion size and calorie content. I am focusing more on making sure I am serving myself more correct portion sizes.

Grocery deal of the week. First let me share this little tidbit that I have never noticed before. I started buying the individual frozen chicken breasts for convenience back when I was single and just continued because they were so convenient. I knew the cost per pound was higher that wholes chickens, but I was willing to pay extra for the convenience. What I didn't realize was that those often came with this printed on the bag "enhanced with up to 15% chicken broth". That was on the brand that I buy. From my reading, I learned that some brands add up to 20% of water or broth in their chicken. So that total weight that I thought I was buying that I carefully calculated down to the ounce to see which stretched my dollar budget more? Yeah, I was basically paying for some water and some chicken. It irks me too because when you see that word enhanced, you think it's been made better. Well selling me chicken pumped up with water or broth makes me feel like I am getting even less for my money and the only thing enhanced is someone else's bottom line. So even though it takes more prep I have started using chicken with the bones still in it. I have been looking for the organic hormone free chicken but the price was often out of my budget range. When I went shopping this week, I found some that was on sale for a more than half off which made the organic stuff cheaper than the other stuff. Because this is what I want to start using, I bought all 7 packages that were in the display case to freeze and use later.

I have been doing lots of label and ingredient reading as I am making the changes to become a healthier person. I am trying to eat only real stuff and have been eliminating most all convenience foods. It does take me a little longer to shop, but that is getting better as I am familiarizing myself with healthier brands and ingredients. It also takes me a little longer to cook. One thing I am doing to help with that is to make extras and using leftovers. Like if I know I am having brown rice as a side dish one night and then a couple of nights later I am using it as a base for a stir fry, I will cook extra rice so that I am cooking it only once a week. Same thing with some veggies and quiona. As these new methods are becoming more routine it is getting easier and a little faster.

Friday, February 4, 2011

When I first started trying to incorporate healthier foods in my diet, I was doing a Google search for healthy lunches and found all these cool Bento boxes. I started looking at them more and more and even got Samantha kind of hooked on them. I have made her several but mine aren't nearly as decorative as the ones she has been seeing online. She keeps telling me to practice and one day mine will look that good too. You have got to love the faith that an eight year old can have in you! I finally ordered her an actual bento box and also ordered some of the decorative picks and things that we have seen with so many of these boxes. She didn't know that I had ordered them so it was a surprise when I showed up at school for lunch today. I pulled it out of the bag and she knew exactly what it was as soon as she saw it. She said she couldn't believe she had a real bento box. Too cute! Any way, our lunch was a whole wheat pasta salad with chicken and some tomatoes and cucumbers, a salad with some tomato "balloons" and some ranch dressing for dipping and then the top tier was some Pepper Jack cheese and pepperoni kabobs and some orange slices. Since this one had some actual decorative touches I got a thumbs up for creativity as well as the selection of foods I brought her. I only took a picture of hers since it looked so much nicer in her bento box than mine looked.